Walking home, I heard Nik Kershaw’s song “Don Quijote” come on my mp3 player’s shuffle. This made me think of Rocinante. But not the Rocinante who was Don Quijote’s horse, rather, the Rocinante that was the name of my giant M816 wrecker, US Army tow truck that I operated in Korea in 1991 as part of the 296th Support Battalion of the 2nd Infantry Division. In fact, I had nothing to do with why the truck was named Rocinante, although I approved of the name. It had simply come that way, already named.
Nik Kershaw’s album, The Riddle, which included that song, was one of only a half-dozen cassettes that I had for my Walkman, during my time stationed in Korea. As a consequence, the tape was on heavy rotation. When I was off duty, I would retreat from the barracks – where I despised some of my roommates, and most of all, where I genuinely feared my squad sergeant – and I would climb the hill on base to the helipad. I would sit down in a ditch and listen to my Walkman and read Dostoyevsky or Gogol. I consumed an immense amount of Russian literature that year – because the tiny Camp Edwards battalion library had a weirdly complete collection of Russian classics in translation. Perhaps this was a by-product of being so close to the DMZ (North Korea was less than 10 miles away), and an artifact of the Cold War era.
I don’t have any pictures from that epoch in my life. But here’s a “web pic” I found of an M816 tow truck. It’s a very useful tool for flipping over Humvees that have been stranded upside-down in rice fields by hotshot sergeants.
What I’m listening to right now.
Nik Kershaw, “Don Quijote.” Lyrics:
your mind can play tricks
makes you what you want to be
just like superheroes
you saw them on tvcoast to coast, wall to wall
got to go, duty calls
here i am
superman, lois lane
saved the world, back again
here i amin my old, red saloon
i’m a knight in shining armour
if i were asleep, man
i couldn’t be much calmerhit the road, on the run
faster than anyone
here i amone for all, all for one
shake the fist, shoot the gun
here i amdon quixote
what do you say?
are we proud? are we brave?
or just crazy?
don quixote
what do you say?
are we shooting at windmills like you?common sense, is as good
as a cafe’ on the moon
when man and machinery come to their high noonbeat the clock, punch the wall
fix’d in no time at all
here i amradio on the blink
kick the cat, hit the drink
here i amdon quixote
what do you say?
are we proud, are be brave
or just crazy?
don quixote
what do you say?
are we shooting at windmills like you?here i am
don quixote
we’re all men of la mancha
[Daily log: walking, 4 km; running, 4 km]
